Burnt Bread
by Howlynn
Summary: There was alot of time unaccounted for between Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I am accounting for it in a slashy Peemitch way. It is slashy, but rip your heart out slashy. Not for everyone. Dark canon themes brought to light and undercurrents ramped up.
1. Chapter 1

Burnt Bread

**Burnt Bread**

**Author**: **Howlynn**  
><strong>Realm<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: Burnt Bread  
><strong>Summary<strong>:_ Between Hunger games and Catching fire there was a ton of time unaccounted for. I can't leave well enough alone and have had many little requests for the Peeta/ Haymitch pairing. Some is Peeta's view some is omnipotent POV – some may be Haymitch. Please note the pairing because I don't want you to read it if you can't stomach the thought. Feel free to criticize my writing, point out plot holes and grammar issues but if you yell about the pairing I will laugh at you. That includes you little stalker girl and if you hide your dislike for me personally in pretending to point out my stilted diction, please do look it up first. I will correct you and annoy you further. Yes I am going to hell, young lady, and my beach front property is paid for and waiting – you may now let that point be considered postulating the obvious. Thank you for your reviews._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Haymitch/Peeta

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I** Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

><p>"I guess the real question is what's going to be left when we get home?" Peeta feels his face turning into a mask of hidden despair. He had only allowed himself to live, knowing the hell he would carry inside for the things he'd done in the games, for one reason. He watches her face carefully, hiding that he had only survived because she seemed to want it so badly. She gave him hope. Her love had lit his soul and given him hope. The girl on fire baking the boy with the bread in her warmth is about to give him a new wish. He can see it in her eyes before her words burn him. It was all a lie.<p>

"I don't know," Katniss says, now unable to meet his eyes. "The closer we get to district twelve, the more confused I am."

Peeta waits for her to say more, but she has said all she intends to without saying much of anything. He could stand here for a lifetime waiting for a word of kindness from her and it would not part her lips for his life_. Why did you even bother? I learned to live with this repulsive plastic leg, because I thought it would hurt you if I wasn't here. I'm so stupid, Katniss. I was never here at all was I? As you wish, my sweetheart._ "Well, let me know when you work it out," he says with the last of the air he can find.

He turns and walks away as if he is strolling to a funeral. He refuses to look back. He has to step up on the train like a kid because only one leg has the ability to lift him up. His real leg steps up, each step and it embarrasses him, to know he will never climb a set of stairs properly again.

He opens the back door and steps into the stuffy air of the train. Haymitch grins at him, but his smile fades quickly as he looks at the boy. Peeta nods. Haymitch's eyes fall on the still closed door and back to Peeta. "Everything ok?" he asks.

"Seems to be working out just how you planned." Peeta replies with no inflection.

Haymitch cocks his head and watches Peeta walk with his slight gimpy gait up the hallway. Haymitch frowns and curses under his breath with a sigh. He glares out the window at the girl standing on the platform still, eyes wide at whatever new world of crap she has created. He doesn't know which one he needs to mollycoddle first, so he decides a drink will help him decide.

Peeta closes the door to his room and locks it. There are no tears and he doesn't break down into angry destruction. Peeta eases himself into a chair and with his prosthetic leg kicked out straight in front and his cane balanced in between his real leg and the fake one, he clasps his hands on top of this instrument of the elderly and maimed and he stares straight ahead. He is searching his mind for a single reason to stay.

Katniss doesn't love him. She was pretending. She and Haymitch fooled him. Haymitch knew and looked him in the eye as he taught her to fake affection for him. How can he ever look in either one of their eyes again? He thinks Effie must suspect too, beings she had looked so miserable for him when she thought he wasn't watching.

He recalls the important details of the games. His first two kills at the cornucopia and finishing off the whimpering girl who built her foolish little fire. He had watched Katniss all night from the bottom of that tree, willing to do most anything to save her. She had dropped trackerjackers on them all and he'd crawled away to die for her hoping he'd done enough. She had her bow and arrows. He was sure she would be fine. He had not expected to take so horribly long to die. He settled into the mud, thinking that it would be his grave, wanting to die hidden from the world, savoring his sacrifice without all of Panem watching and taking pleasure in his moans.

The trackerjacker venom had convinced him that he had died and she won the hunger games. He kept feeling such happy pain because he saw her home with Prim. He watched her bring flowers to the cemetery in Victor Gardens where he had been planted next to Haymitch's other reaped and sewn drinking advisors.

He had been a ghost in the bakery listening to his mother tell those customers who mumbled a condolence that it was no matter. She made fun of him and said she didn't miss his ugly little cakes. His father even seemed pleased. Katniss and Gale were there in his tracker jacker visions, married and wealthy. Katniss was pregnant and seemed happy, but Peeta only saw the black eyes and bruises her new husband had decorated her with. He was gone and could never save her again. He was so afraid for her.

He watched her have to mentor friends and even Prim. She stopped being happy and instead got drunk with Haymitch. Sometimes she didn't even win the game and that fear terrified him the most.

It was hard for him to even accept he was still in the games by the time this haze wore off. He couldn't let go, not knowing if she was alive or dead. He hung on, waiting for her to kill him, to give him peace by coming for him and telling him he was the last one. He waited for someone to come and tell him. He panics when he finds out he can't get out of his grave. He's too weak to help her. He mumbles in delirium for her to please hurry and kill him. It hurts.

His eyes slit open for the announcement of a rule change, but he isn't sure if it is real or a dream. He waits. He doesn't believe it was true when he hears the footsteps and her soft voice calling to him.

"Here to finish me off, sweetheart?" he teases her, hoping she does it fast.

She had come back for him. She had kissed him, saved him, risk her life to fix him so she could feel good rather than because she needed him. Now she needed him to pretend for a little while longer and then what? Then what did he have look forward to? Mentoring with her each year, broken and slowly replacing Haymitch as the district drunk, watching her look at him with pity would be the one life awaiting him. Trackerjacker visions had nothing on the truth.

Haymitch knocked on the door later that night. Peeta answers and looks up at his mentor, his great advisor and the planning half of his betrayal. He lets him in and says nothing, resuming his seat and waits patiently for the mentor to speak his peace.

"Don't do anything stupid. I see it on your face."

"Debatable definition, Haymitch. "

"No debate. I won't lie to you. It will get much worse. There are things I need to explain to you." Haymitch drops his eyes and looks at the floor. "She will never make it without you."

"You won't lie to me? How refreshing. Going to bring me up to speed on you and her little innocent joke? Going to pretend you give a damned now, Haymitch ole buddy? "

"I deserve that. Promise me six months?"

Peeta matches the grinning scowl perfected by Haymitch, "Six hours, yes. Six days, maybe. Six weeks, no."

"Peeta?" there is pain in Haymitch's voice.

Peeta's eyes lock on Haymitch and narrow. "Don't bother. I get it. I was only of value if it helped her. So I will keep it together until the cameras go away. Then I don't care what you have to say. I can't take a chance of turning into you."

Haymitch looks at him and sighs in frustration. "They will kill your family for it. It will make her life a living hell. She does love you, she just needs some time."

Peeta smiles like he is being told that unicorns have invaded district twelve. "My time should have run out in the mud," he admits with quiet surety.

"She almost died saving you. That isn't the action of a girl who didn't care. Just make sure you know your options before you take ours." Haymitch stands. "Let me know. They will kill me too for your little broken hearted swan dive. I will get my affairs in order. Need to figure out who gets all my horded treasures." Haymitch says as if he is trying to make a joke.

Peeta yawns. "Well, I imagine you'll have time to drink most of it," he says to Haymitch's back just as the older man opens the door. The only reply is the door to his room slamming hard. Peeta stands and engages the lock on his door again. Those who knock after that are ignored. Peeta has collapses onto his bed and let his mind swim away in the bliss of the capitol drugs that are meant to ease the phantom pain of his leg, but he takes enough of them that they make the pain of his amputated heart feel more distant.

When it's time to act again, he does it with cool calm. He won't look at her in case any leftover bits of his heart bleed for pity through his eyes. Begging for love is over. They are over and he is determined to bring her no pain for her decision. He will give her some time to make her feelings crystal clear. Her actions will determine if she meant the words and he will take action that will not be seen as something she can be punished for. He has fooled them all. Fooling the capitol into leaving the people he escapes alone, really isn't going to be a difficult matter. His gimpy leg will be blamed, not his mentor or his true love.

He smiles at her with careful shadows of nothing and offers her his hand. "One more time? For the audience?" She takes his hand and Peeta looks down at it, small in his, yet strong enough to crush his life.

Effie fusses over each of us one last time, straightening my lapel and tightening my district inspired tie down tight on my throat. It feels like it is cutting off the blood to my brain and I simply nod my thanks to the pink headed women, refusing to complain of any discomfort. Nothing matches the pain of existing unselected in her heart.

There are waves, reunions, flashing smiles and lips pressed to each other that are no longer kisses, just perfected learned motions that please the spectators. When her mother voices disapproval that Katniss has returned with a boyfriend, I drop her hand and step away as if in respect rather than relief.

Only my father comes. The bakery must remain open. My beloved mother might miss a tiny coin, should she pretend to have any heart to spare for me. I feel a twinge of guilt for inconveniencing her prediction. District twelve might have a victor this year, she had said, not meaning me, not planning on ever seeing me again. My whole life has annoyed her. Maybe I love Katniss just because her nonexistent feelings feel so familiar to me. Maybe I found my scowling cold mother and said yes, that's the girl for me.

Dad hugs me, and his eyes try to apologize that he's the only one. He tells me the polite excuses of his dreams. He pretends that her actions have no hurtful intent. I nod for his sake. He thumps my leg and says he can't even tell. I smile, meaning it no more than he means his words. I pull a bag of coins from my pocket and press it in his hand. "Don't tell her." I say, knowing he will anyway. It is probably a thousand times what she made in the two hours it would have cost her and my brothers to greet me today. I will make no effort to close the gap now. I am already dead to them.

We eventually are taken to our new Victor houses. I stand in the entry of mine, alone. Everything is as meaningless and beautiful as the capitol, and every inch is just as empty while stuffed with possessions. I feel like a guest here, knowing it is so very temporary. Nothing will ever live here, but it doesn't exactly welcome the dead either. I go into the kitchen and explore the ovens. The cabinets are fully stocked with food and supplies. In the dining room, rows of champagne and fluted glasses stand awaiting celebration. There was a party of delicacies laid out for all my well-wishers to enjoy. I know they are all here. The untouched offerings make me sick. Would they have even come to my funeral, or would it interfere with store hours.

I go to a lovely den and sit in the chair, behind the big desk. I rummage through the drawers and lift paper and pen out onto the leather writing surface.

Final requests of Peeta Mellark.

Bury me in darkness. No services. Expect no procession.

I write these things and toss the pen down, leaving the book open and in plain sight. There is nobody here to hide it from. I will make my lists as I pass the time among my final duties. I spend a few hours in planning my demise, searching train schedules and writing dates on the calendar. Haymitch bursts in the door just as I try to figure out how to open a bottle of champagne. I look up at him as wafting sounds of music follow the cool breeze in the door.

"Peeta? Where is everyone? Your family should be here. Hell half the Seam is muddling through her house." Haymitch looks astonished then his face darkens. "Nobody came?"

"You did." I look at him and smile a little as I shrug my shoulders.

He snorts his nose and his eyes sparkle a little in his insane humor, "I suppose this is more our style anyway. Let's show them how to party, boy."

I hand him the bottle and he untwists the cap guard and twists the cork with the flawless skill of long practice. He pours us two glasses and hands one to me. I look up at him, wondering what he wants of me now. His sarcastic humor is catching though and soon, I don't care why he's here. The wine is good and I am not alone at least. We drink to the dead and to bastards of destruction. He tells stupid dirty jokes and I laugh in giddy reckless anger that is building in me like a bubbling darkness of poison thought.

I get so drunk that I get weepy and pathetic. I tell him about my family, things I have never told anyone. I spill secret things that have eaten me alive and Haymitch holds me as I tell him of Katniss. He tells me of a girl he loved once. He confesses he has more feelings for the fireball and I then he should.

I look up at him confused and find his lips pressed against mine. It is not the first such embrace I have known from a man. It is the first one that I accept by choice. He is gentle and as I kiss him back he backs away and smirks at me. "I expected to get stabbed or punched at the very least," he says. His eyes are a little shiny and questioning.

I shake my head at him. He has no idea that my pure little oaf act isn't as true as he thinks. Some mean part of me is determined to shock him. He thinks he knows everything. He thinks getting me out alive is some favor. It crosses my mind he's just here to be paid his imagined due. He and Katniss both just disbursing and collecting debt as they do in the Seam. "If I fuck you will you come to my funeral? "

His eyes go wide and he stands up, shoving me away. "You think it's a joke?" His face is so angry

"Do you think it's a joke to me? My life isn't worth thirty or forty coins to my own mother. My friends have voted to pretend I came home in a box. My mentor has lied to me and yet is the only one who is here, even if his motive is a little full of bubbly stupidity. You may just want to use me again, but I'm no Finnick Odair. Maybe I'm desperate. My door isn't getting bashed in with companionship options. You'll do. I guess this explains why you are single?"

Haymitch chews his lip his face stirring in anger before swelling with pity and then sinking into determined desire. I just sit there and look up at him, waiting to see what he does.

"For years they killed anyone I cared about. I stopped, caring. None of them will ever deserve you. You're beautiful. I do want you. It isn't because I want to hurt you though. I don't deserve you either, but I would do anything to offer you comfort. If that bothers you, I will leave. But Peeta, I want to be here. "

"You have a lot of secrets don't you, Haymitch?" I say sipping my drink lazily studying him, and wondering what he would look like naked, without the vomit frosting of our first encounter a few weeks ago. I had not wanted to see him at that moment, but there had been glimpses, once I got him rinsed off and into clean pajamas.

I was glad Katniss had not helped, so my eyes could randomly linger a little. It had shocked me that he was hairless below the waste, like a boy. I soon had explanation for this strange condition when the stylists went after my own crotch with torturous intent. I have no explanation for the requirement, but the thought of us both in that condition, does make my mind wander into suggestive possibilities.

He sits back down, placing his hand on my knee and giving me that listen to your mentor look. "Peeta, let me make you feel better. I am not trying to hurt you. I would never hurt either one of you if I can keep from it. "

I give him a look of confusion. Then I grin, knowing I landed on a truth about my drunken liar of a Mentor. "You want her too? You do don't you."

Haymitch sighs and nods. "I can't explain it. The two of you. I wouldn't act on those feelings. But I never expected you to be as damned lonely as…me."

I stand up, walk to the capitols unused party set up. I don't want to care. I don't want to be cared about. I want to be detached and miserable so I won't feel guilty. I want liquor and distance. I say nothing and remove another bottle from the display. I open it, throwing the debris on the shiny clean floor and guzzle the sweet liquid then belch loudly. I pop a chunk of cheese into my mouth and chew it slowly. "We ought to go crash her party."

Haymitch snickers. " Yeah. We should."

As we head two houses down, to the new Everdeen mansion, I barge in with Haymitch close behind me. I don't see Katniss anywhere. We don't stay long. I have no idea where Katniss is. I think the most logical and hurtful answer. I don't smile or bother to pretend there any reason to stay. I am surprised he follows when I quietly slip out the front door, escaping the glare of happy that I don't have any right to stand among.

Haymitch returns to my house with me. While I pick at some of the sagging snacks, he opens another bottle of champagne. "I bet she snuck off with him." I wait for him to disagree with me, but he doesn't bother.

Haymitch turns me toward him and I look up at him as he closes his lips on mine again. He pulls me toward him and he barely smiles as my pants are tugged and dropped in one smooth motion. His hand reaches down the front of my boxers and I shiver at the gentle touch. I don't want him. I hate him, but right now, if I send him away, I have to face this house alone. His touch and my response to it may be pure shame, but compared to the rejection, I don't give a damned what it means or doesn't mean.

He's here. Something wants me. Something in this fucked up life is thinking about me at this moment. He may be an ass, and he may be despicable, but his hands are the only ones willing to touch me in a bit of kindness. Even if he's just found a new way to use and destroy me, even if this turns into something ugly and his seduction stops being survivable in my sober mind, I am too pathetic and needy to stop him.

I sigh, looking in his eyes and wondering if he knows what I am handing him. I wonder if he will be my last terrible decision. I wonder if he is just being selfish and taking me for the challenge or if he really will be sad when he has to stand by my coffin and say those final meaningless words he says for all his lost tributes.

I hold his shoulder as I step out of the pants, kicking off my shoes as well. He bends and helps me deal with my annoying fake leg. I look up at him almost apologizing for my disfigurement. "Fucking piece of shit."

He grins and whispers, "Peeta, I've seen much worse. It doesn't matter."

He slides my tie off and pulls the buttons off my shirt, popping them off the garment one by one. The look in his eyes, the way he wants me, brings me to follow his lead. I watch him lock the door and take his hand when he holds his out to me.

He lays me on the wide white couch, kissing me. I don't resist. I watch him take off his own cloths and sit next to me. He slides my boxers off and for the first time I touch him, closing my fingers around him and watching his face to see him still questioning me. I know he's wondering at my state of mind and yet unwilling to ask the obvious question about how I know of this clandestine appetite.

His head is between my legs in just moments and his mouth is pure magic as I watch him make me disappear. My eyes roll back as a groan for his skill rocks me with this stupid need to be alive for just a moment, even if it is Haymitch making me feel something.

I watch him obviously enjoying what he's doing to me and I don't have to admit anything, my body is speaking volumes to him about how good he is making me feel. I speculate why I am letting this happen. I know it wouldn't be, if I wasn't so fucking drunk and I would have pretended he was insane if I gave a damned about anything right now.

I close my eyes and let my breath rise on the waves of delicious depravity. I haven't had release in so long that it is beyond a simple sensation. His middle finger enters me and I thrust without ability to control myself, needing to scream at the pleasure and trying desperately not to. I feel his hand milking me as his throat works to contain the way I flood him. My sounds filter through gritted teeth as my bucking muscles lock in quivering titanic bliss so massive, it truthfully hurts as much as it is joy. I scream so violently that when my air is spent I can't make my lungs reverse flow.

The orgasm stretches out and I see floating lights dance at the edge of my eyes as I curl forward wondering for a split second if he intends to kill me. His mouth is still on me and his eyes smile in gleeful satisfaction that I now resemble a victim of the electric fence in motion and expression.

Then I collapse backward, sucking air finally and lost in the cool relief and whimpering gasps of exhausted loss of all reason. I feel his finger withdraw and lurch at the now shattering nerve response to any slight movement in that area.

He stretches himself next to me on the couch, so smug and delighted that it makes me laugh. His cock is eager and twitching against my thigh. He kisses me and the taste of me is on his breath. "You nearly drown me," he whispers seductively as his hand slowly massages my now slack and still sensitive groin.

"I couldn't stop," I say still breathing hard.

He smirks and drinks straight from the now warm bottle, "Did you want to? Stop I mean?"

"No." I admit. "Now, what about you?" I use two fingers to glide up and down his shaft.

His face drops the smirk. "I don't expect anything. I wanted to please you. We don't have to go any farther." He pulls my head up and kisses my hair, like the matter is settled.

"I am not leaving you like this. After you just…" I wiggle a little, meaning to offer him access.

"I'll take care of it." He stops me. "I have a very good imagination. You're not ready for that," he says with a soft sigh and a gentle nuzzle at my ear.

I swallow, not sure what to say. "I want to." Finally jumps from my lips.

He leans over me and cups my face, sincere thanks in his eyes and voice, "Thank you, but I would hurt you and I would never find pleasure in you suffering my desire. Maybe someday, but not tonight."

"I can handle it."

His eyebrows center as if he's trying to put a puzzle together. "Peeta? Are you a virgin in this way?"

I look away, picking at the material on the back of the couch and shake my head.

"May I ask the context and circumstance?"

"Doesn't matter," I say setting my jaw, unwilling to say more.

"It matters to me. Has this occurred while you were in the capitol? Have I failed to protect you from someone?" His voice is gentle and calm, but his face is darkening in fury.

I realize what he means and laugh bitterly, "No, not there."

"I am glad to hear that, but I still get the feeling … Peeta? Is it someone here? Was it done against your will?"

"Drop it, Haymitch. It wasn't on your watch. Has nothing to do with you. Leave it alone." I sit up and harden my face enough that he knows I mean it. "Don't ruin this for me. Ok? This is different. I want this. I want to go upstairs and even if you have to hurt me, I don't care. I want to decide. It's my choice. I don't care if it matters to you or not. I just want it to be. I just want to fucking please someone for once in my Goddamned life. I want to give you… I don't care if it hurts. It's not like I am going to go bragging or embarrassing you by acting stupid, like I did with her. You wanted to make me feel good and you didn't take or expect or even ask. It means something ok? To me. Nobody ever gave to me. I told you. Remember? I told you that I didn't have a reason to win? I told you that all I wanted was to die so she could go home. She was all that mattered to me. Now there isn't one fucking thing. But right this second, pleasing you back does."

Haymitch sits up and glares. "So you want to torture me? You want me to fuck you and care about you so you can what? One day I wake up to you dead in my arms? No. The whole damned country loves you Peeta. I know you are disappointed. That's why I'm here. You act like you think I can just play with you and when you have had enough or you get mad at me and check out in a week or two, that I will just be fine with losing you. You must think damned little of me, if that's your fucking plan. And now, here I am and you say this?" His face pulls into a mocking impression of me. "It's ok if you hurt me Haymitch. Fuck me anyway, so I can rip your shriveled black heart out. The idiot girl was faking it." He stands up and he throws the bottle against my flawless wall. He turns to me shouting and his voice booms in the room. "So what? I'm not faking it. And by all the coal in hell if you plan to not stick around, I'm done with you too."

I stand up and put on my shirt. I can't button it of course, but it is something to do as I form my reply. I speak calmly, refusing to look at him. "Whatever you decide is fine. I am going upstairs. I haven't even been up there yet. I am not negotiating with you. If you want me, the answer is yes. No strings. If you don't, then get out. I am not putting anything on you or anyone else. I am not making any promises. They all love me? The only one who showed up is you. I'm sorry if you do suddenly care. Please don't. I didn't offer to make you care. I offered because for a second, I did, a little." I take another bottle and I go up the stairs, listening hard for his footsteps.

I open the first door I come to and flip on the lights. I sneak a glance at him. He's still standing exactly where he was, conspicuous anger projecting at me. I set the bottle on the floor, turn out the light and half fall in drunken exhaustion onto the bed, face down. I smile a little, hoping my naked ass will be a tempting sight. The smile evaporates as I hear the lock on the front door and then the door closes. I lay perfectly still, eyes open and blurry with tears. Well, that settles that I guess.

I am almost asleep when I hear the door open again. I can tell from the intentionally heavy tread on the stairs it's him. I don't move and my heart beats so hard I can't hear him as his footfalls go back to silent.

"Are you dead yet, you little bastard?" he says just inside the door as if he's afraid I really am.

"My parents are married." I reply, not moving a muscle.

He sighs and I feel his weight settle gingerly on the bed.

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Please vote – please review


	2. Chapter 2

Burnt bread II

**Burnt Bread**

**Author**: **Howlynn**  
><strong>Realm<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: Burnt Bread  
><strong>Summary<strong>:_ Haymitch and Peeta are volatile and yet tenderly broken. Can Haymitch find a way to talk Peeta out of his plan? Thank you for your reviews._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Haymitch/Peeta

I** Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way

* * *

><p>He leans over and lays in my line of sight, resting his hand on my shoulder. I look at him, finding the anger gone and only sad gray eyes filled with cloaked fear. "I'm glad you came back, Haymitch." I smile at him and reach up to brush his hair off his cheek. His capitol cut is still long and will be back to wild locks before he has to tour. Maybe I'll let mine grow, a bit.<p>

He drops his eyes and he sucks his cheek in, chewing it as he does when he is debating what to say. "I wasn't leaving. I needed to get a few things. Then I was afraid to come back in."

"Sorry. You want me to let you know when? I don't want you to worry every time you think of visiting. It's downstairs circled on the calendar. Not an absolute, but first available after the hoopla. " I say this with no emotion, as if it needs no discussion, like a simple appointment.

He nods, but my words pissed him off again. He asks in a whisper, "Any plans or just going to attack a peacekeeper?"

I smirk at him. "Good idea. I was planning on meeting a train. Bum leg. Public, accident. All the gore the capitol demands, nobody will suspect." I whisper back.

"Quick, but not painless," he says. "Kind of hard for the weeping widowling to put on a farewell for the cameras. Kissing hamburger may upset her."

I look at him confused. "You think they will make her kiss me? Dead?"

"I can guarantee it. They will make an event out of it. And just so you know, the second you are out of the picture, I will have the honor of training her for a fate worse than death." His face is steady and cold.

I nod. "Mentoring will be hard for her."

"It will. Not as hard as the rest of it. But don't worry. I'm good at what I do. She will be just fine." He winks at me and his hand wonders down my back and he squeezes my offered cheek.

I spread my legs a bit enjoying his exploration. "Wait, what did you mean by the rest of it?"

"She will be just like the rest of us Peeta. Once you are gone, she will have her victor duties." he tells me but his hands are beginning to stir me again. "Be honest with me, have you ever fucked a man, or have you only been fucked?"

I prop myself up on my elbows and take a moment to speak. "They fuck me." I fight the tears that well in my eyes, wondering what he must think of me.

His eyebrows rise. "They? More than one? Can I assume that this is not precisely a pleasant experience?"

"I don't know what to say." My cheeks flush and I am too shamed to tell him more.

"Ah. Sometimes, it's not so bad? Makes you feel sick. Like you deserve to be treated like that?" he asks in a gentle knowing way. "How do they keep your silence?"

"I'm not telling you." I whisper stubbornly. I lean into him and kiss him, reaching down and again freeing his still wanting cock. I don't want to answer questions anymore so I let my mouth serve a better purpose.

He rolls onto his back and obliges my attentions, but he does voice opinion as I fumble around. "Very nice, but don't keep up the same rhythm until you are ready for final outcome. Yes, now try it with just your tongue. Gives you time to swallow and rest your jaw. Don't let anyone gain control of your head, you stay in charge…."

I sit back and look at him as if he's lost his mind. "Are you going to talk the whole time?"

He smirks and pulls me down on top of him, "Probably."

I sigh. "It's weird."

"Come here." He beckons. "I want you."

"Answer's still yes."

He reaches to the side and opens a tube. "Lay down, in whatever position you have found least disagreeable."

I don't move. "Haymitch, I…it's not. I like… kind of mean?"

He tries so hard to hide that my words hurt him, but his jaw works and he has to take a deep breath before responding. "No. We are doing this my way. Now you learn something new. "

He waits for me to comply. I sigh and lay on my side. "Yeah like to bring earplugs." I mumble. He immediately curls behind me.

"Just relax and trust me. I have some skills that surpass my booze consumption. Let me take the bad ones all away. Let me fix it all." His hands roam my body kneading out tension and caressing so gently it nearly puts me in a trance.

By the time he let me know what his cock felt like slipping in and out of me, I would have let him saw me in half if it would have pleased him. There was no pain. He wrung me out in need then destroyed my mind in pleasure. Maybe it was the champagne, but I had never been in the bed of anyone who wants to please me and my mentor delighted in doing just that.

I was in the beginning of my third sweat drenched tuneless song as I finally felt him tense in breathless chorus. He groaned and I felt the warmth of him spilling inside me as I christened sheets and carpet. I could barely remember any other need because I had never found much beauty in this act. I had imagined something nice with her on occasion, but she had no desire for me so I didn't push. This was new territory for me, to be taken in this way. Even the girl on fire could not singe my soul at that moment. If he meant to harm me, it was by forcing me to care about something enough to stay, not because he wanted to notch his belt with me or take anything he didn't give himself.

We showered and he gathered his things as if he meant to leave. His face seemed filled with regret and I didn't understand. He avoided my eyes but didn't seem angry. "Please don't leave?"

He narrowed his eyes at me a little. "I am not sure that is a good idea, for either of us."

I shrug and look down. I don't mind asking, but I won't beg. I sigh in frustration.

"You understand I am not gay right? We are not going to grow old to…" his face falls and he is silent.

I blow air out my lips in a raspberry. "I think the old age part is a given. I don't know what you are. I just know that I would like it if you stay a few hours. They know we are drunk. Nobody will care that you're here. They will only think we passed out. Whatever you are, even if you don't stay, thanks for tonight."

"Before I say yes or no, you show me your calendar," he says gruffly.

I lead him downstairs. I forgot about my list, but other than a moment's distress, I don't mind if he sees it. He lifts the notebook and reads two of them out loud.

"An empty stone without name or date. Only the following words will mark my place. " He glares at me.

" Fire in the heart.

Smoke in the head.

No victor lies here,

just a bit of burnt bread. " He stands there and silently reads it again. I smirk at him, waiting for him to get it.

"Is that supposed to be funny, Peeta?" he demands with a shake of his head.

"Yes. It is funny."

"Oh this one is my favorite. Please ask Haymitch not to vomit on me? "

"But two years ago you…"

"Fine! All bets are off if you meet the train." He says this with fury, but it makes me smile.

I grin and shake my head at him. "Understandable and forgiven."

He throws the notebook as if it is as vulgar as vomit. He taps the date I have circled. He eyes lock on mine and he crosses his arms and tilts his head in amazed revulsion. "Any particular reason you picked my fucking birthday?"

My mouth drops open and I shake my head. "No, I didn't know. I will black that day out and I guess I better find out everyone's special days. When is Gale's birthday? He would appreciate it."

"Ask her. Why the hell would I care? So five weeks is guaranteed? No bullshit early outs or pansy ass threats? Your word?"

"My word on intentional. I won't promise I don't choke on your cock or die of food poisoning in the Hob. Or get myself hung for murder, but I won't –"

"Who are you going to?" he cuts me off with his half question.

"They may find me less amusing now," I say with hesitant hint.

"I imagine that to be fact. Leave me that list, just in case you are not completely successful? I will see that task finished, no matter what," he says with dark pure friendship.

"You won't like what you see. Just warning you." I can't meet his eyes.

He steps from behind the desk and he pulls me into a tight embrace. "I don't like not knowing either. Whoever it was, I will not let it pass. When did this begin? Please. I'm not meaning to pry, but I do want to understand. The things between us will never be for public consumption. They won't have the monitors up and programed yet. We won't discuss these things at my house, but yours is safe for now. I called my friend Beetee last night, to make sure, before I came back here."

I can't say it for a few minutes. I cling to him, wishing him not to know this shame of mine. "I was nine," I finally whisper with a shaking voice.

"Fuck." He holds me tighter. "You know it isn't your fault don't you?"

"It is. I let them. I didn't tell." My voice is so tired.

He pulls my head up to look in his eyes. I can't do it without tears. He kisses my left eye, tears and all. "It doesn't matter. It is not your fault for enduring it. You are a child. I should have my own head examined for this lack of judgment on my part tonight."

Now I do look at him in fear. "Don't say that. Haymitch, if you hadn't come back…" I take a deep breath, "I wouldn't have waited long. I couldn't have faced you."

His eyes close and his breath hitches. I shake my head and smile a little. "It is a funny epitaph."

"God, you're an asshole." He says pulling me so tight it feels like he's declaring love. I don't care what it is. Right now, I almost feel like somebody cares a little. I have to sit. The champagne and exhaustion is fed with this feeling of unknown connection.

We go back to the room we had made love in and I nestle to him after taking my prosthetic leg off. His hand feathers softly on the half of my thigh they left me. It feels so soothing and delicious that my eyes droop and his hand finally stills as I see my games twist into failure at the cornucopia.

He is there in the darkness, speaking softly, telling me it's all over. He says I won and Katniss is fine. I sigh and move my head onto his chest, listening to him breath and thinking how strange it feels to want him near me. I wonder who Katniss rests her head on right now. I stand up and hop on my leg to open the window. The only sounds are crickets and a nearby owl. The music and noise from her house is finished and all is dark. I wonder if her mother really objected to her having a boyfriend, or if she just objected to it being me. I am curious if her hunting partner is sweetening her dreams.

It is late morning when my throbbing head wakes me up. I feel like I already met my train. I roll over and remember who snores beside me and I feel queasy. Stupid champagne. I blush at all that happened last night and I am furious with myself at how much I liked it. I stumble into the bathroom, my leg only half buckled and gulp water from the sink. It does not approve of the new location and I puke it right back up. I brush my teeth, take pain pills and go back to bed hoping this whirling room will slow down. Haymitch is snoring.

I give up on going back to sleep. I head down stairs and fix horribly strong coffee dumping a ton of sugar in it. I look in the cooler and decide Haymitch should eat. I fix eggs, filling them with cheese from the barely touched buffet. I put all the food away, even keeping the meat. Food poisoning doesn't scare me a bit. I pour another cup of coffee and sigh as the pills finally kick in and sweep the worst of my symptoms away. I return to the room upstairs and set the eggs and coffee on the floor before leaning over and kissing him.

His eyes pop open and he reaches out and grabs me by the throat and the next thing I know he is on top of me intending to strangle me. "Go ahead. " I say with a smirk, not battling him in any way. "When you finish there are eggs and coffee for desert."

"What are you doing in my…" he sniffs and looks around. "Not my house? Peeta?"

"Morning, so eggs and coffee or would you like to finish me off first?"

Haymitch lets go of me and backs up holding his skull. "I hate champagne. Oh fuck. Peeta? Did we? Oh fuck of course we did. I …"

"I know. It's fine." I grin at him sheepishly.

"You remember…everything? And you made me breakfast?" He looks at me as if there is some sly joke I am about to tell.

I am not completely ok with this whole mess and his doubt creeps into me with a little exasperation. "Look, I don't care, Ok? I had a nice time, I'm embarrassed to say, but if it is going to piss you off then just fuck it." I get up and leave the room.

I go to the den and lock the door. I pick my notebook up off the floor and remember he's read it. I gave him my word he had five weeks or so, but I am pretty sure it was a lie. There are 12 planned celebrations I will have to attend, First parcel day is to be televised, then the victor's banquet. That is the last absolute obligation. I have penciled in the second parcel day but it is more of a possibility then real commitment. I can skip it if it all becomes too unbearable, because the day after that was my scheduled date. Haymitch's birthday. I still like the idea of Hawthorne's birthday, and smile as I wonder when it is. It would be hard to forget me entirely then, wouldn't it Katniss?

I am checking train schedules. I am looking for the ones that require a 24 hour notice for ticket purchase. Those trains don't usually stop in District 12. They pass through here on their way elsewhere at high speed. If some official wants to ride, they have to have permission from the capitol to travel and they have to have time to direct the train to make the stop. Those are the ones I am writing in. Those are the ones to make Peeta hamburger with. It doesn't take me long to list them all. Trains only pass through once or twice a week. If I miss Haymitch's birthday train, I have to wait eight days for the next run. Eight days may be an eternity. I am only on day four since she told me it was all a lie and it has already felt like ten years.

I hear Haymitch calling out to me, but I don't answer. He tries the handle and shouts my name a few times. There are three hard thumps then a groan and cursing.

I go to the door and listen, waiting for the front door to signal that he's left. After a few minutes I hear it slam. I wait two full minutes then unlock the den door and open it. I wasn't expecting to find someone standing there and I jump and trip over my stupid leg, beings I moved without thinking and sprawl on the floor.

His lips lift at the corners in annoyance. It isn't a smile, but there is amusement in his eyes. "Let's not play mind games Peeta. You aren't very good at them."

"I was just letting you leave. You didn't seem so pleased about our private party last night. Making avoiding me easy for you." I stand defiantly then turn away.

"I didn't mean it to sound that way. I was calling you. You didn't answer." His apology sounds more like an accusation.

"Did you need something or were you just stalking me to get a couple last jabs in?"

He takes a deep breath and studies me closely as it slowly escapes his lungs. I just look from his feet to his hands then off to the side, waiting for him to say whatever he plans to say.

"Peeta? I'm not sorry it happened. I don't want to trap you into more, but I wouldn't be opposed to it if you…Please don't let this mess us up."

"It didn't mess us up. We already were messed up. Now we are just totally fucked. I said no strings and I meant it. You have an open invitation. I won't come to you. Let the whole thing settle on you a bit. See how you feel. Either way, I get it. It wasn't a mistake for me, but my limited perspective may be flawed in your eyes."

"If that's your best line to seduce me, it sucks."

"If you can only stand me when you're drunk, don't bother."

"I'm always drunk, dumbass."

"You play it that way. I don't think you actually are as much as you pretend." I glare right back at him.

"Find a new date yet?" he asks pleasantly as if asking how my dinner was last night.

"Maybe. Eight days after your birthday. If that's ok? I can push it up to the day after the victor banquet if you would prefer?" I rattle this off watching his face. His eye twitches a little at the earlier date.

"I would rather it not occur at all. You are pushing me on the time. You promised five weeks, minimum." His voice is loud, but he seems otherwise fine.

He glowers down at my calendar. I suddenly remember something he said last night. "You never answered me last night. Besides mentoring, what victor duties will you have to train her for?"

His face smooths into a mask. "I will tell you on my birthday."

"Why not tell me now."

He smirks, "Because then I'd be scraping your ass off the trackside tomorrow. You don't fucking care enough about anyone to know."

"I can find out Haymitch. You aren't the only victor."

"Really? I am the only one you know."

"I don't think I know you at all. Not much that's true anyway."

"Trust me boy, not much to know." His eyes are stern and fierce.

"Why didn't you tell me it was an act?" I should know better than to ask, but he seems just mad and reckless enough to tell me.

His face hides pain, but when his eyes drop, he's hurting. "When would you like me to have advised you? Before, as you launched? Perhaps as you woke up and begged for her in between your heart stopping and as I watched them hack away the bits of you determined to die? Maybe, I should shatter you now? Because, I don't know how she feels, but I know what she did to keep you. Neither one of you have a fucking clue what she did to keep you or what it will cost her. I do. So while I would love to sit around feeling sorry for myself, I don't have the luxury. Peeta, I can't fix what is going on in her mind or yours."

I take a step toward him, cautious but at least sure this is really the true Haymitch. "I am not meaning to hurt you, you know? I just don't see any point. I look at you and all I see is my future. How do you…"

"The truth is, I don't know. I think if I die, they win. All these years and if things are left this way, how do I rest in peace? You are both so screwed; I can't even tell you that your plan is wrong. But I will say this, I'm trying. I'm here. For the last twenty five years I have stood in your shoes, without a chance in creation that I get to even have a hope. Your view, shitty as it is, looks pretty good from down here? I have watched the trains too, Peeta, and far worse than you would believe. I have had nothing to exist about for so long, it feels normal to me. I can't judge you. Not really. I stuck around anyway. I had no idea what I was waiting for. Then the two of you show up. The two of you are either my salvation or my final path to purgatory. I don't know when I will cross the river, boy. I don't know how much more pain I have to carry. But when I get in Charon's boat, I am getting in boots on. "

"Boots on huh?" The phrase makes me smile for some reason. I get what he's saying and suddenly it feels right. Boots on. Going down fighting to the last breath. "How do I help?"

He stares at me for so long, eyes filled with tears he refuses to shed. I close the distance and slip my arms around him. His breath is hot in my hair and I close my eyes, pulling strength from this broken bastard of a man who calls himself my mentor. Maybe, he is worth a little forgiveness after all.

It takes him a while to reply and his voice is raspy when he does, but his words bring both laughter and a deep sorrow. "Stay alive. For right now, just give me that, Peeta? Stay alive?"

I nod. "Stop being an asshole and maybe I will."

He snorts and I feel his stomach pulsing in silent mirth. "If that's the stipulation, did you want me to order you a capitol send off? Or should we just dump you in a coal shaft and call it accident in the District Twelve tradition?"

"I hear there is a soup served on special occasions at the Hob. Kind of like the idea of telling the whole bunch of you to Bite Me!" I look up at him and smile so he knows I am kidding.

"I will speak to Sae. She never says no to free meat. " His lips bend to my neck and he nibbles me. "Tender meat especially."

"Me either," I say trying to be seductive. He smiles at me, affectionate desire in his eyes again.

This time, we are not drunk and he insists that there be no rush. I have to wonder how he got so good at these things. I would feel stupid asking him, and I am pretty sure he wouldn't tell me if I did, but for a supposed celibate bachelor, his appetite and his enthusiasm are far outside of my expectation. I would never have believed this strange, sweetly desperate side of Haymitch.

This time I took him and I think I loved him a little by the end. Nobody had ever given me that. Engulfed in his warmth I somehow knew it was just a symbol that he'd already let me in his heart. If he could find a place for me there, I felt that maybe he was right about Katniss. I wondered if her heart could ever melt enough to let me in and I knew if I left her, I would never find out.

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><p>Thank you - please take a second and review - even just a one word comment if you are shy.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Burnt bread III

**Author**: **Howlynn**  
><strong>Realm<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: Burnt Bread  
><strong>Summary<strong>:_ Peeta flirts with disaster and Haymitch has his hands full. Peeta is slowly setting up his plan and preparing to convince everyone he's met with a simple tragic accident but new information gives him second thoughts just as another possible idea presents itself in a terrible way. Thank you for your reviews._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Haymitch/Peeta

I** Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>I won't say my longing to escape disappeared. I spent a lot of time with Haymitch that first week. We did drink a lot. I visited the bakery. I forgave my school friends for not bothering to show up for my party. It was the family's job to include them. Mine didn't even feel like showing up for free food, much less put effort into their murderer of a disappointing son.<p>

My father couldn't meet my eyes. My mother shamed me for getting 'between a seam girls legs' and bragging about it on television. I tried to hold my fury that she would speak of Katniss like that, but I couldn't respond when she laughed that my little seam wench moved on without a backward glance. She smiled in disapproval and said I was lucky not to be stuck with her.

My oldest brother promised me trouble with his eyes and the way he licked his lips. I twirled a hunting knife Haymitch insisted on giving me and blew him a kiss as if to promise more fun than he could handle.

My other brother ignored me. He was embarrassed that some people had asked him if he'd missed a sure thing by not taking my place. They had teased him that if I could win, it couldn't be that hard. I ended up kicked out of the shop when he mentioned Katniss in the same way I had heard him discuss lots of seam girls. He had always been able to beat me up. He found out, not only was that no longer the case, but that me carrying a knife, and knowing how to use it, may have changed the dynamics of his favorite punching bag.

"Bout time you toughened up a little, puss puss Peeta." He said, getting one last remark in as my mother drug me off him by my hair and shoved me toward the door.

I bought four bottles of liquor in the Hob. Ripper narrowed her eyes at me as she took my coin. "Haymitch needs to bring you kids home more often. "

"Don't count on it. " I smirked.

"Saw your sweetie here yesterday. She bought a couple of her own. I guess the three of you gonna make me rich as Undersee."

"Have to spend it someplace." I say, leaving before anyone else wants to talk.

There is a thing we have to go to at Madge's house tonight. She and I had been friends since we were little. Delly Cartwright, Madge Undersee, Bender Campbell and I had all been friends once. I hadn't seen any of them since I got back. I don't think I can stomach sitting through it without a drink. I never approved of drinking. Things change I guess.

I slosh down more than I meant to as my mind turns to the girl who built a fire. I didn't have much guilt for the two I had to kill at the cornucopia. They attacked me. I was glad to kill them for my girl on fire. But the other one was harder. She hadn't done anything to me. There was a young sweet girl who built a little tiny fire because she was cold. She is cold now. I put out her fire so the girl on fire could live. One fire snuffed and the other an inferno of pain. The alcohol slides past my lips and I feel the cool mud holding me. I remember her tears and her eyes squeezing shut as I slide the blade across the girls trembling throat.

She was in pain. I tell myself that I did her a favor. If Cato had gone back, he would have never been kind about it. I say what I know is true. The true part that I can't stand is she didn't want to die. It adds to my guilt that I sit here safe and warm, and it's all I have left to want.

Haymitch has been good to me, but I'm doing the best I can for him and I don't know if it's going to be enough. I don't know if I can ever survive that girls little campfire dying in her eyes. The sound her skin made as it parted and the last little gasp of misery she had let out. Her blood disappeared into the sandy soil, and she disappeared into the sky. I don't know where I disappeared in the games, but I did vanish.

Haymitch opens my door and his eyes take one look at me. "After, idiot. Not before the party!"

I laugh. I say something my grandfather used to. I have no idea what it means. "Time is relative dear man."

"You have a black eye."

"Yeah, not welcome at the bakery. Breaks my heart," I say deadpan, but chuckle.

He stands there blinking. "It's that bunch of little piss-pots you brother runs with, isn't it?"

My face says all I need to tell him. I didn't hide the shock that he would pop to that conclusion.

"I guess I found my volunteer?"

"Volunteer for what?" I ask.

"You check out, I won't be hanging for you. They will love one of those little bastards in the capitol. They'll make nice Avox and they don't even scream when you hurt them. You pick your favorite. I'll see he lives a long useful life." Haymitch smirks as he waits for it to dawn on me what he's saying.

"What would you do?"

"Oh anyone with enough cash can rape a victor, but if they rape us to death, it's a Capitol crime," he says softly, with a sly glint to his eyes.

My face turns to him, sober and confused. "What do you mean? Anyone with enough cash?"

"No need to worry yourself. It won't affect you. Now Cinna says the blue garment bag is what you are to wear this evening. Can you get yourself together or do I need to dress you? You have to be ready in an hour." He fumbles through the closet and whips the blue bag out. He flops it over the back of the couch and waits for my reply.

"I'm fine. Will it affect her?"

"If you stick to your crappy ass plan. I know it will. If you decide to stick around, maybe not." He narrows his eyes and shrugs.

"Are you saying it's something like Finnick Odair." I say carefully phrasing it as a question, unable to breathe because I already know the answer.

"Too bad. Kind of spoils my surprise. Keeps going through my head that once it comes to be…how much she will regret…her innocence. It will torture her that she turned you down."

"No. It won't bother her. She couldn't care less. My plan won't change her heart in any way. Besides, I could never stick around to see that. An insane asylum isn't a better choice for me. It's where I would end up."

"So you're just going to dump her on me and hope I can hold her together."

"She's just like you. Both of you are the boots on type."

Haymitch mutters curses as he walks out the door shaking his head. I dress. I don't look put-together. I actually think it is amusing that I am sort of dressed to the standards of Haymitch. My tails are out, my tie looks like a two year olds shoe string attempt. I don't know where my socks, technically sock alone, could have disappeared to so I give up. I don't need to shave or anything, but I left my hair in towel rub wetness.

There was the picture I needed to present for the plan. Haymitch's little protégé'. The new drunk of District twelve. Haymitch falls off stages and I loved train platforms. I will make my mother proud as a bonus. I laughed as I looked in the mirror. I couldn't wait to see Katniss' face. I tried to guess if she would scowl at me in disapproval, scowl at me in disgust or scowl at me because she didn't care at all. Unpredictable girl, my Katniss.

I splash a little of Ripper's finest on like aftershave. I make faces in the mirror trying to choose which one looks the most like a surly drunk. I can't pull it off with the flair of my model so I opt for the big friendly clueless plastered one instead. Honestly, I am a little drunk which makes it really hard to pretend to be drunk without actually falling over. Hate my leg. I hate my leg. They should have just let me die. I realize I would have died happy. I would have been so certain she loved me and I would give about anything right now to go back to that moment. I swallow, wishing my throat was full of her berries.

Now I would die and know the truth. I sigh. I didn't like the thought of eternity knowing how stupid I was. I would have rather died stupid and happy for just once. I had been happy in that one moment. Even as they took back my gift of a life with her, I was so happy to die for a girl who loved me. I was so happy I had had that, even for a moment. It was so pure and clean and sweet. Nothing I had lived mattered but those moments. I wished now I had just slipped them quickly in my mouth and crushed them in my teeth. I could taste the sickly sweet smell of them if I closed my eyes.

I didn't know they were on the way but a glut of tears jump on me and attack my face, bending it into ugly angles and leaving brilliant red eyes and a blotchy red nose behind once I finally herd the little monsters back inside and on their way. I smile at the damage. If anyone may have seen past my camouflage before, they wouldn't now. I look like hell on holiday.

Haymitch has changed into his own drunken costume as he comes to retrieve me. His eyes narrow and his head shakes. "You're worse now than when I left and god you reek." He shakes his head. "This is my spiel, Peeta. There is only room for one broken drunk here."

"That's good. I won't borrow it for long. Give it back practically as good as new." I smirk and kiss him sloppily on the nose. That wasn't exactly where I was aiming, but we didn't all have the perfect skills of my co-victor.

She glances at us as we make our way to her house to pick her up. We are singing a raunchy tuneless ditty about how the girls we love by the hour are cheating on us. Katniss looks at us with quiet amusement but her face changes to pity when she gets a whiff of me. I am unhappy about that one and act silly hoping to make her smile.

Haymitch lunges her way, whispers in her ear. She nods and takes my hand signaling for our true love to commence. The evening is dull, though I am secretly pleased at the disappointment at least 20 people showed that they had not been invited to my house warming. I explained simply that I had been unable to have one, not wanting to interfere with or miss Katniss' party. She looked at me with her fake adoration, but I didn't miss her look of confusion. I smile at her surprise that I was there and raise an eyebrow at her, silently asking where she had been for her party. She looks away, giving me all the answer I need. I promised them my party would take place soon, depending on Katniss' schedule and teased that they would be expected to attend.

We pretended to pass looks and I must have kissed her forehead sixty times. It was all she was allowing this evening. At first I thought it was due to my Ripper eau de toilette but I soon noticed the brooding face watching us intently from a balcony corner set into the grand staircase. A huge red piano provided our musical background and Madge looked ethereal in deep burgundy. Her fingers hopped on the keys with leisure as she chatted with the uncomfortable looking seam boy who hovered nearby, in his first set of new cloths.

"Gale looks nice. Did you buy those for him?"

Katniss narrows her eyes. "No. I didn't even know he would come."

"I thought maybe you would have. His birthday is coming up isn't it?"

"Not for another month. How would you know that?"

"I remember someone saying it was his last reaping. That it wasn't long before he was safe. I don't remember what day they said…" I leave it hanging as a question.

"It's the twentieth." she says not really paying attention to me, but looking at him and blushing.

"Pity," I say out loud. No trains that day.

"What?" she says looking at me like I am crazy.

I smile and think fast. " Just a pity to be called when you are so close to seeing the end. No worse than your first year and just eligible, but it would be equally as bad so close to the finish line I would think."

She rolls her eyes at me. "It's bad no matter when you're called. God Peeta, I hate you drunk. I'm going to say hello to Madge. Go find Haymitch before he waters the plants or vomits on somebody."

I grin at her. "Of course, sweetheart. Anything you say, sweetheart. Didn't know it was my turn to watch him. Do tell your cousin hello for me."

Her shoulders say she heard me, but she marches onward and upward, toward her favorite two people without so much as an angry glance my way.

I look around the room. I am not the only drunkard here. I feel like I can't breathe in this stuffy smoky room. I step out the front door. The cool night air sings against my skin. It is only two blocks to the train station. On a whim I head toward it. There is a train due here tonight. I have no plan to take a swan dive, but it does give me a flirty feeling and I want to stand on the platform when it arrives.

The station is mournful and empty except for the old man, an attendant and ticket writer, sitting in his brightly lit ticket booth. There is always a man here to sell tickets. I smile and think he must have the worst job in the district beings, other than Haymitch, and maybe the mayor, I can't think of anyone who has permission, much less can afford a ride on the train. I suppose the peacekeepers are his only regular clients.

I wait for the train. I have stood almost a half hour on the lonely platform when a chime sounds, startling the old man. He stands up, rubbing his eyes, sees me and glares. I watch him stomp out of his inner sanctum toward me. In the distance I can just make out the brilliant light of the engine and hear it begin its wail of sorrows.

"You there. You have no business here. What do you think you're doing?" he demands.

I smile at him and reply, "Don't you love them? The trains? You must be the luckiest man in the district."

"Oh, it's you Mr. Mellark," he says in a decidedly more friendly tone. "What do you say?"

"I mean it is your job to watch these magnificent trains rush past here. I would do it for free. They are pure engineering perfection, don't you think?"

He shrugs and looks down the track, following my gaze. "If you say so. Just a waste of track coming through here mostly. Ain't no riders usual enough to speak of. How was it? Riding one?"

"Have you never? I would have thought…" I look down at his expectant face and it dawns on me he's never been anywhere but right here. "The truth is, I didn't pay much mind on the first ride. But the second ride was much more agreeable. I spent hours staring out the window watching the land whoosh by."

"And you will get to again soon. You will ride a whole month during your tour."

"Yes. " The train grows closer and a breeze is pushed toward me and then it is there, sounding its garish horn and screaming and shuddering past us. I blink at how quickly life would stop if something were to step out in front of it. My heart quickens as my mind pretends for a split second and I imagine it chewing bits of me into smaller bits, uncaring, unfeeling that it had just crushed every bone of me into an unrecognizable heap. As the last car finally passed, I let out a sigh. I looked down on the track and wondered if there would be much to find.

I turn to my companion. "Yes. Very soon I get to be on another train." On the front and probably smeared most of the way down the side, I think.

He nods and looks at the far away lights.

"I like to watch them. That's ok isn't it?"

"Suit yourself I guess. Just mind that you stay behind the yellow line. They sure don't make a stop just cause some idiot can't read the safety precautions."

"That would be most grizzly, I imagine," I say carefully.

"It ain't pretty," he says sadly.

"Has that ever happened?" I ask.

"Sure. Not for years. Since we put the signs up. A lot less. Most famous one was the one twenty years ago you know. Old Twander Carmickles, Haymitch's mentor. Took a tumble off this very platform just before the reaping that year. Terrible thing. Hell, took a week for us to just find enough of him to bury and poor Abernathy, well it touched him you might say. Boy was never right after that. I 'magine you would know. No disrespect or nothing. "

I grin at him, just because I don't want him to see my shock. "None taken."

"I mean he done right by you and your girl. But he ain't never been just all there, you know. Always been mighty flighty and troublesome, til this year. Well I got logs to keep. You be careful and have a good night."

"You too. Perhaps I will see you again," I say lost in thoughts of what he'd revealed.

I wander back toward Madge's house. I have slipped away unnoticed. I don't see Katniss anywhere. To my eyes, her cousin is conspicuously missing as well. People have settled into small polite chat groups and the music is now provided by fiddlers playing snotty moaning tunes softly. I slide up next to Haymitch.

He glances at me and asks, "Having a good time?"

"Please make my excuses. I don't feel so wonderful. Katniss requested that I remind you not to puke on anyone and not to piss in the plants."

He looks madder than he is. "Nice girl, always looking out for me. Go on. I will stop by later to fry up some greasy sweetpork fritters and cabbage."

My face turns a little greenish at the thought of that stench. Guts and leftovers of any animal besides actual pig is quite the seam delicacy. He smirks at the effect and waves me away.

I escape back into the cool air of the night. My leg is hurting and my head really is pounding as I walk alone up the dark streets. I hear them before they mean for me to. I can't run. I turn to face them. I reach for my knife as they surround me and remember it is not on me. I left it at home because it didn't go with Cinna's pretty cloths.

"Dressing up so nice for us these days?"

I turn and look into the cold blue eyes of my brother. I smile wider and take in my odds. Six against one. Looks like my train is early. I do not comply. Well eventually, as I thought I was dying, I suppose you could say I finally stopped resisting.

I hear my brother curse as they look down at me once they are finished. I twitch and hear him say distantly, "Oh fuck, Peeta. Oh fuck. Shit, we gotta get him home. He can't even fucking crawl, Stan. He is my fucking brother, you know." He slaps my face and my eyes slit open. " Why'd you fight them you stupid little shitball. This is your fault. Not such a big deal now, are you."

I am lifted painfully and the agony brings me back to the land of not quite dead enough to be buried. I am drug a ways, when I hear someone remark that there is someone coming. I feel the impact of the ground as they drop me and run. I reach down and try to cover myself. If I die, I would like the party not to include my naked, bloody ass in the moonlight. I roll in the dirt fighting pain to pull my pants up and with some small success; I lose all ability to care. I look up at the moon and then close my eyes.

"Just let me die," I say to the blurry shadow.

The voice opens my eyes and causes me pain, "Peeta. I'm here. I've got you boy."

"Leave me alone. Please don't look at me, Haymitch. God, don't let her see."

"Can you stand?"

I laugh at him but it hurts so much I puke. He leaves me and I pray to be gone by the time he gets help. All I ask is that she only hear I was beaten to death. I can't let her ever hear a whisper of the rest. I will my self to die faster. I try to force it by clenching my abdomen, hoping to force any internal damage to bleed faster. I feel so tired, I hope it worked. My mouth is full of grit and coppery blood.

I think they put me on a train for some reason. I moan, sure I am being sent back to the arena. There are gentle hands, and water, stinging my cuts, holding my head. There are pills pressed to my lips that I can barely swallow. I hear other voices but I don't care.

I wake up to find that I am clean and in the bed I recently made my own. I hurt everywhere and feel damp. I lift the blanket and wish I hadn't. There is the equivalent of a diaper on me and it has stains of crimson. I look over at the chair next to my bed. Haymitch is sitting quietly sipping on a bottle and watching me.

"What happened?" he asks without any comments of relief or gladness I am awake.

"I missed the train and found out my number is about three to one. Unfortunately they brought six. Next time I won't forget my knife."

"Has this happened before?"

"I never fought them that much before. So no. It's ok. I will get them next time." I say with silly bravado.

"There won't be a next time."

"Am I dying then?"

"You'll live."

"Then there will be a next time. Always is."

"I want names."

"No."

"I know who they are."

"You assume you know. You can't prove it. I didn't see them."

Haymitch stands and throws his bottle and kicks the chair. "What the fuck is the matter with you? How can I help you if you won't let me?"

I shudder and look up at him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Haymitch." I roll to the side, turn away from him and stare at the wall, ignoring the tears until one makes my upper lip tickle and I brush it away.

The bed moves after a few minutes and his arms are lightly slipped around me. "Why won't' you tell me? Peeta, I am trying to help you. I'm your mentor. It's my job to protect you. I want to protect you. Can't you understand that?"

"Tell me about your mentor? Was he like this with you?"

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><p>Thanks for reading and thank you for the nice reviews and alerts. You guys are amazing and make my day!<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Burnt bread

Burnt bread IV

**Author**: **Howlynn**  
><strong>Realm<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: Burnt Bread  
><strong>Summary<strong>:_ Haymitch has fallen for this kid just a little. Will history repeat itself?_  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Haymitch/Peeta

I** Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>I watch him sleep. I am going to lose this goddamned kid. Serves me right for caring, like a little teen fool. I am Abernathy, the one who cares about nothing. God, did I fuck myself this time. With both of them. I admit it was the girl with the slug personality that got to me first. She is like looking at a fucking mirror. I can't always decide about her. Sometimes I could kill her. Like now.<p>

Peeta the boy with the plan. He's insane, sly, stubborn to the death and so beautiful he takes my breath away. Well he isn't very pretty right this moment, but that's only his carcass that is damaged. Oh he's got some deep wounds inside too but I think he must be one of the bravest men I ever met. Boy, man, hell he's both.

His hell and mine aren't so far away from each other. He uses humor to survive just like I do. The difference is his humor is sweet and kind to others for the most part. Mine hates everyone with equal panache.

I don't hate him, yet. I will when he comes back to haunt me for what I have to do to the girl if he leaves. I will play that card last. I will describe every horrid thing they will do to her and I will be as vulgar and cruel as I can be. I will wax on at how I will enjoy breaking her in, hinting that I intend to ride her like a cowboy. I wonder if he will even know what spurs are. I will tell him I will have her trained into an obedient submissive capitol pet before his grave dirt goes flat. That ought to eat at his soul, no matter how bad he thinks life is.

If I know him, and I think I do, he will stay for her. He's known such cruelty; surely he will save her again. I hold that last card up my sleeve. He will hate me, but he will have to stay and save her from that.

I hope the idiot girl will come around. I have to keep him alive to give her time though. She can't be expected to just leap into joy at finding out that her life will never belong to her. Hell her only hope is to love him. They want this sappy stupid story of redeemed sweethearts in the capitol. They want to use the two of them to spark belief that all is well with Panem. It will make people believe that the capitol is a mostly benevolent force of good intentions upon their lives. But only if these two will play.

The other side is equally grubby in their seduction and manipulation of the story. They want them to spark the rebel cause. They, correction, we, want them to be used just as heinously. Me. I will use them. My side. My mess. My fault. My job to keep both sides from destroying them until they can be styled, and presented like shame, as tributes to my games. My arena. My big ideas.

My two little rebels. Whether they live or die doesn't make a damned bit of difference so long as they do it together. Martyrs or married, they are only symbols for the rest of us monsters to hide behind. There was a place in district ten called Texas once. Katniss and Peeta are our Alamo. Our beacons of tragic remembrance and a bonfire of lies to rally around.

Oh it was so easy for me to put them in that place. It was so easy for me to justify. I was saving them. I was bringing them home to live happily ever after. I was the good guy, the mentor, the great savior. If I just hadn't cared about them I could still be filling my endless bottle of don't-give-a-shit with those lies.

But they have broken me like a love sick puppy. Don't piss in the plants, Haymitch. Yes, my sweetheart, bad ole Haymitch will be your good doggie. Bad old Haymitch will stay sober for you. Bad old Haymitch will roll over and offer his belly. Bad old Haymitch will defend you to the death and never expect a table scrap of kindness in return. Bad old Haymitch will turn on his own pack and his own kind to offer you a real life and a real chance.

And then what? My sweetheart will kick me when I put my stinky old head in her hand and ask for a scratch on the ear. She will put me out in the winter, forget to feed me, and I will watch and lick my wounds and love her still. Haymitch will wag his tail and hope until she puts him in the ground and sheds a tear that he was just a good old mutt of a hound. And if that is the outcome, it will still be the most perfect thing I ever thought to do. I'm as pathetic as I sound. I know it. But I don't care.

Because I do care so damned much about them both.

I should have never fucked him. I was drunk. He is beautiful. I'm a selfish bastard. That is all it took for me to fall into a huge pile of foolish. Shocked me that he knew so damned much. Hurt me most of all. Hurts me now so sharply I can barely control myself from killing the bastards. Finnick Odair all over again from my hearts pain meter.

The difference is Finnick occurred in the capitol and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. All I could do for him was help, the only way I could. With Peeta I can stop it. I can give him vengeance. I can't protect him from so many things and yet this one thing is in my power to fix and the stubborn little death magnet won't let me.

He wants to destroy himself over his little fairy tales of romance. Well I do understand now that, that in fact, is not his only relevant situation that has brought about his passion with his own demise, but it's damned sure is the swing vote. I can't hold him here. I don't matter enough to him. His poor little heart is so full of her that I don't even register on his love-o-meter.

If I don't figure out something, I will be searching the tracks for his pale little chunks of brain jelly and his blackened bits of stinking bowel. That was how I found so much of Twander, damned his soul, when he pulled his best joke ever on me.

I would follow the smell of shit and blood and the sound of flies and I used a set of my mother's good vegetable tongs to dig in the gravel, grass and leaves and pick up the sticky bits of him as I screamed like a lunatic and begged him not to leave me to what he'd finally escaped. They said it was an accident. They reported that he was drunk and never felt a thing. That was the first year I heard that Haymitch Abernathy was turning into an alcoholic. I relished the comparison. We should all have goals in life and I found mine.

Peeta asked me just now, if it was like this with my own mentor. I told him nothing of any consequence, but my voice and my touch soothed him to rest. How do I tell him the real parts?

No, he didn't take me to his bed. He cleaned me up and called victor services for me every time they did this and worse to me. He held me and blocked the world for me and put me back together when my two weeks of imagined victory were over. Stood by me, holding my head as I peered at all the boxes and wouldn't cry in front of the town. He got me drunk, and fed me painkillers for my first capitol party and he cried all the times I refused shed a tear. All the times I held it all in like burning dysentery, Twander cried for me. He loved me.

I worshiped him. He was all I had and the son of a bitch knew that when he left me. He proved to me that day that I was not worth love. I wasn't worth another moment of his time and he tumbled into my nightmares, and I walked the damned tracks crying for him.

I swore I would never do that easy thing. I swore I would live every last torment just to be a bigger ass by surviving then he was by giving up on me. I promised once that I wouldn't give up. I hoped I could keep it. This damned boy. If I have to walk the tracks for him, will I be able to make the twenty-two miles back with any bits of sanity left. I walked out of the district with a bag and the peacekeepers threatened to shoot me on the border. I opened the bag and they let me pass. They saw it in my eyes that nothing could make me care if they did.

When I walked back through, I had found seventy two pounds of him and a wild puppy trying to gorge itself on Twander. It growled at me, but I tamed the damned thing. For four years, that stupid dog was my life. He was what I came home to, what I loved. He slept in my bed and padded next to me when I would hunt. He was just a big old dog who peed on the capitols pristine flower beds in front of my house. He had consumed part of my mentor and my simple shattered mind felt he was a message from my mentor, a gift. A consolation prize of the purest form of his love.

Baxter chewed my expensive capitol shoes and left giant turds in remarkably funny places that seemed to be lodestones for the shoes of peackeepers and a mayor's wife whose sister I had held in the hunger games as she died. She had it in her head that I was a nice person and she owed me her misplaced affections. She eventually got tired of scraping dog shit off her delicate shoes and scraped me off her delicate heart. The mayor worshiped the lovely girl I suspect, but can't prove, should have a photograph of my mother. After all, hair color aside, she is her spitting image.

No Peeta, sweetest boy. It wasn't like this. I could never live up to Twander. He protected me and loved me in a much more pure and descent way. He would never have betrayed me by seducing me. I am an unredeemable dirtbag compared to my own mentor. He would be ashamed of me. He would probably put me out of your misery just on principle.

But, when you hate me one day, and I know you will, just know I would not betray you by leaving you unspeakably defenseless to them on purpose either. He left me. He left me to the wolves and banished me to a deeper ring of hell then I will ever allow you to see, my sweet lover, my sweet soul. I may be selfish and I may be cruel, drunk, useless and everything they all say about me, but I will never give up on you. I will never be the one to teach you that nothing in the world can love you. I can't promise I can take it if you leave me too, but I will never leave you. I will try for her, but I am pretty sure you will be my end. If you are, you little one legged lush, you were worth it.

Live darling boy. Please live. Live this time. Believe my lie. Then live on.

In my arms he stirs, his lips curl into a faint smile, as if he can hear my thoughts. I'm so sorry, Peeta. I will make them pay for every sadness they handed you last night. I am good at things like that. I can't say all the things I need to say to you, but I can give you some peace. I am worthless when it comes to confessing my secrets, but unspoken doesn't mean non-existing. I love you and her more than life. That isn't even worth saying to you. Who cares if a cockroach loves fine art.

I can't even imagine where to begin explaining myself to you. I had a dog once Peeta. He ate my mentor and I didn't hold it against him. I brought him home and loved him. He was my best friend and the only thing I had in the whole world. He loved me. He really did. I was called to the capitol for half-time cock- calls. I made a mistake. I made a comment and the customer got angry. I still finished my dance cards, even though I was barely breathing. I had done what they wanted and it was only a comment because I was in pain. I didn't mean it.

And when I got home, he was nailed to my wall, shot eleven times and nailed to my wall.

My Baxter took my punishment. He handed me his life when he became my tame dog and I wasn't there when they came for him. He died showing them his teeth, defiant even though he didn't have a chance in hell of winning. Dying instead of running off. He protected the idea of us to his last breath. He died alone for my mistake. Little doggie boots on, Peeta.

I found out who it was. He was just following orders. He said he shot him so many times because the mindless brute just kept coming at him, taking one bullet and another and another. After the man told me his story, do you know what I did to him? I butchered him and liked it. I killed a peacekeeper for killing a dog. What do you imagine I would do for you?

I killed him. For the honor of a dog that shit on the sidewalk and gave me a case of fleas every summer and a battle with ticks every fall. I killed the man who pulled the trigger, because it felt right. He had no choice but to do what he was ordered and I smiled as I watched him cough little raindrops of blood all over his perfect white uniform. I skinned him and nailed his pelt to the hanging tree. I field dressed him for Sae. I took the head. Boiled the flesh out myself and sipped at the broth. My mentor left me, Baxter ate him, the peacekeeper killed him and I ate the dog-murderer. Maybe I'm insane, but they are all part of me. The skull is still up in my attic, clean and smiling white. How do I explain that sort of thing to your pure little heart?

This time I am both dog and master. I belong to you, boy. I belong to her. I am as faithful to you as Baxter was to me, but don't think for a second I won't poop on the floor every once in a while and bring you fleas that will drive you nuts from time to time. But, the two of you have tamed me, broken me to heel and just because I am not without a little pond scum on my fur, I will try to show you. I can't tell you with words any more than he could tell me. But I will stay. I will try.

No, sweetheart, we are not the same. I'm not good enough to ever be in his shadow and you are much too good to ever be stuck in mine. But if you die, you make so much worthless.

I watch him sleep and breath by breath I fall deeper in love with him knowing with each bit my heart allows, there will be a price. I did it. Now I have to undo it while still using them as pawns. Oh God Peeta, the train is so damned easy. Sticking around and living with what you do and what they do to you? That's the hard part.

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><p>Please review!<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

Burnt bread

Burnt bread V

**Author**: **Howlynn**  
><strong>Realm<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: Burnt Bread  
><strong>Summary<strong>:_ Peeta battles infection and overhears his real prognosis. He wishes for Katniss, but forbids anyone from telling her. He realizes his last glimpse of her could be her heading toward him. Haymitch has a word with Peeta's brother._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Haymitch/Peeta

I** Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>Come out Katniss, don't let me wait<br>You Victor girls start much too late  
>aw But sooner or later it comes down to fate<br>I might as well be the one

well, They made you a statue, told you to play  
>They built you a temple and locked you away<br>Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay  
>For things that you might have done...<br>Only the good die young

Haymitch watches the bakery. The oldest tosses a clean white apron over his head and Mrs. Mellark stands running her lips at him for a while. Finally she steps out the door, smiling smugly and head covered in a gaudy scarf. She turns her piggy little nose up and follows it toward the upper merchant district, a list clutched in her fist.

Haymitch rubs his hand across his face, forcing the smirk muscles etched in his face to relax and letting his features take on a more pleasant countenace or more truthfully continence. He made an effort not to look so pissy.

"Good morning, Mr. Abernathy, how may I help you this fine day?"

"Looking for Peeta. Hasn't been by since the Undersee's party. Figured he must be helping out here."

"What?" The kid says, face trying to not look too wide eyed. "No, he's not here. I haven't seen him."

Haymitch leans on the counter. "Sure hope he hasn't come to harm. Tricky thing with us victors you know. We are considered capitol property. So any damage we come by, well it is a capitol matter. If I don't find him, I will have to report him missing I suppose. Said he was on his way here. When did you see him last?"

The boy looks a little ill as he seems to have trouble recalling. "Oh, the day of the party. He stopped by then. Haven't seen him since."

Haymitch crooks his finger at the young man, inviting him to come close for a more intimate discussion. He's surprised he is fool enough to do it rather than try to run away. "Hmm, that's not quite…right is it? I am not really looking for him, am I? " Haymitch motions him to lean in still more closely and he purrs just in his ear, "Someone left your brother to die in the dirt after fucking him, and beating him to death? That is a capitol murder. They are examining him right now, gathering the evidence."

The boy looks up at Haymitch, genuine pain crossing his face. "Are you saying, my brother…is…is..?

"There was one witness, me. Want to take a guess what I am going to do to them. Want to take a guess why I haven't handed them that name? I do understand the pleasure of raping someone and beating them to death, of course I have much darker plans. Did you know that he and I, were more than friends? I was his mentor and that is bigger than mommy and daddy and lover all combined. There is nothing like it. When they win you win. When they hurt you feel it deeper. When they die..." Haymitch wobbles his head and bounces his eyebrows.

The blue eyes and peachy complexion flush pink and his face fills with the first genuine torment Haymitch had seen. He has no idea if it is fear he actually killed his brother or fear it's his ass on the line right now. "Peeta died? No. No. He's my baby brother. They…" The baker's boy makes no sense to Haymitch. He takes a step back and crumples into a squatting sorrow. Head in hands he lets out a mournful wail. He loses his balance and is in such grief he doesn't even seem to understand he's in danger. He shakes in silent sobs. He doesn't run or offer Haymitch any excuses, he just falls apart on the floor of the bakery.

Haymitch squats down next to him and looks with cool curiosity at this less attractive version of Peeta. Why isn't he denying it? Why isn't he understanding what else was said. God could he do that to someone he genuinely cares for?

."Please, were you with him when he died? He wasn't alone was he?"

"What if he was? You left him to die?"

"No. I waited. I went back for him. He was gone. I thought you… I thought he…" He looks Haymitch in the eyes, "I went back. I went back for him."

"I had a kid brother one time. Someone killed him too. Any big brother who would let them get away with it… I would feel obligated to punish in a more personal setting. A brother who helped me get the one's responsible might have some redeeming value in my eyes. I might let him keep his shame rather than hand him to the capitol. I do want you to know I spend a great deal of time in the capitol and I am known for certain unspeakable activities there. I will be looking forward to requesting you personally." Haymitch studies the boy as his words fall into his circuitry.

" He was gone by the time I got back. My baby brother. Oh God. The last thing I said to him. You're not such a big deal now, are you? I didn't know they hurt him so bad. I knew it was bad but…why? Why?"

Haymitch puts his hand on the boys shoulder. He hands him a piece of paper. "Names. All of them."

The young man, face pulled into pure ugly snot dripping sorrow, writes the names down and hands the paper back. " Stan killed my brother. He was the last. He kept kicking him after. How did I let this happen?"

Haymitch is yanked out of his perfectly terrible plans. He had expected denial, and pleading. He never expected the bastard to be in such grief that he would admit it all. He had not ever considered the kid cared enough to have gone back to help his younger brother. He speaks more kindly, questioning, trying to make all the puzzle pieces fit.

Haymitch leaves the bakery with five names on a list, in Mellark's handwriting. He finally told him Peeta was still alive, if he didn't go septic, he had a good chance of making it after all.

It is hard to walk away. The brother said a little bit too much, like he knew he was atoning for the life he led. He wasn't even mad that Haymitch had lied. He thanked him, for saving his brother. He would see him harmed, but the same heart that allowed that, rejoiced that Peeta lived. He told Haymitch to go ahead and kill him if that was what he came for, he deserved it. Strange bunch, the Mellarks.

These boys on the list and the sniveling one behind the counter were monsters, but monsters are usually made. Peeta had an Uncle. Haymitch would bide his time. The pack of monsters would pay at his leisure over time. Each would receive their eye for an eye, but Peeta's brother cared about him in some twisted way. Even laying close to death Peeta wouldn't betray the brother who did this to him. He has plenty of time to reason it all out. A rush to retaliation isn't always the best action. Haymitch is a patient man.

The message was delivered. Peeta was no longer on the menu. But a man breathed life into the young brutes who had done this evil and that was interesting enough to play revenge with caution. Haymitch didn't know the uncle, but he wouldn't barge in killing the leaves. He wanted the root.

The brother could have only been thirteen years old when this supposedly began. That was old enough to have gone bad, certainly, but instincts told Haymitch that there was more to the story. The brother was no shining example of brotherly love, but he hadn't run away. He fell apart, felt responsible, mourned for the boy. He was not the hateful cowardly being Haymitch had expected to find. He was a victim of his own experience. He knew it was wrong deep down, but he somehow didn't know any better.

Haymitch hated number one son still, but he could understand broken. The Mellarks were all broken. Peeta was already broken before he was reaped. It explained a lot. He had announced that he would not try to win. He had no will and no interest in coming home. Haymitch had mistaken it as the romantic folly of a love sick boy. He was love sick, but maybe he had other deeper motive for his affinity to martyrdom. Maybe it was there before he found his excuse to play the tragic hero.

Haymitch strolled toward victor's village with his head down, contemplating all the permutations of his intended actions. He almost missed the girl as she passed him.

Her eyes flashed to his, then darted away. She wasn't ignoring him, but she wasn't seeking him out either. Haymitch at once, pulled his face into his drunk disguise. It was habit. "So, sweetheart, you're too good to speak to me now?"

She stops and sighs, at once taking in his slight leeward sway and slips her arm around him. "Come on, you old fool. Let's get you home."

Haymitch smirks. She was taking care of him, as if he was her personal burden. That spoke volumes to him. She couldn't say things out loud any more than he could, but the actions are as clear as a Capitol propaganda video. He leans on her just a little, accepting her unneeded but most welcome attention.

***  
>Peeta's mad at me. He won't even, open his door to me," she confesses suddenly.<p>

"He isn't home."

"Where is he?"

"He is staying with me. He's not doing so well, sweetheart."

"I guess that's my fault?" she tenses, waiting for me to agree so she can bolt away.

"No. No, sweetheart. It has nothing to do with you, actually. He got in to a fight and he didn't do too bad considering the odds, but he couldn't win against that many. They did a real number on him."

She frowns and chews her lower lip. "Was it? About me? Did Gale…"

"Your dear cousin was not involved. You were not the subject of the brawl as I understand it. Some of his school friends got it in their head he was a little too big for his britches or some such thing. He could have backed down, but…"

"He didn't care enough to?"

"Maybe, or maybe he felt that he'd taken all the crap he could stand. I don't know."

She nods. "He's ok, right?"

"I think he will be. He's out of the woods."

"My mother didn't tell me."

"He didn't want you to…worry." Or see your pity, or make you feel obligated or worse, let you see him and take a chance of you figuring out the truth.

"I didn't mean to hurt him."

"I know that. But you should fix it soon. He isn't in a very good frame of mind. It would probably not kill you to at least let him know that his existence matters to you."

"I'm not so good at that sort of thing. I would probably just screw it up more."

"Well, I doubt that is possible. Give it a shot, sweetheart. You couldn't do much worse. You might refrain from sneaking off with your cousin every time Peeta's around. That would be a good start."

"What the hell are you saying? I haven't even spoken to Gale, except for five minutes at the party. He's avoiding me. Everyone is. Except Madge. Peeta just abandoned me the other night. So did you. I went to Madge's room and when I left you were both gone."

I try to control my surprise. " I was scraping Peeta bits off the sidewalk at the time. Forgive me for mixing up my priorities. We crashed your housewarming too, you know. The guest of honor was rather conspicuously absent from the festivities. The other cousins were there in prominent hordes. One wasn't. Imagine what conclusions Peeta might have jumped to with those facts bubbling in his mind and not a soul crossing the threshold of his house."

"Why didn't he have a party? He said that the other night? I didn't throw it or anything, the stuff was there and people just started showing up. I had a headache and was up in my room. You could have at least sent Prim up to say you were there."

I shake my head and laugh a little. He'd jumped to the same conclusion as I did. "Alright, that was our mistake then. As far as his party. Have you spent much time around the Mellarks?"

"Oh. I see," she admits easily.

"They are …" I pause, having too many colorful adjectives to land on one.

"Total jerks?" she fills in.

"Something like that. Yes."

"Except his father. He's nice. Like Peeta."

"Peeta could be the greatest of us all. Too bad people fail to see that. They take him for granted. That could easily become a terrible regret." I hope she appreciates how vital it is she understands.

"Maybe. I could stop by later? But, don't tell him. Can you make it from here? I have to get to town. Mom gave me a list and it's going to take me forever."

"I'll be fine, sweetheart. Thank you, for seeing me home safe and sound." I wink at her.

She shrugs, but her normal frown fades into an almost smile. "Who else would? Nobody else can stand you."

"Ah, but the quality of those who can stand me makes up for the quantity who can't."

"Sober up. You get all mushy when you drink, Haymitch." She turns and takes a few steps then, still walking backwards ads, "Thanks. For taking care of Peeta."

"It's my job. It always will be. It's in the mentor's handbook." How I wish that were true.

I hate being useless. I hate being in Haymitch's house, though this room is surprisingly clean. They moved me while I was so sick, when I became a 24 hour a day job. I have been nothing but a bother as usual. I appreciate all Haymitch has been doing for the last few days, but I wish he'd just walked on and let me be found murdered. It would have been so simple. They would have accepted it in the capitol. People would have maybe whispered at my condition, but nobody would have ever been caught, and other than a few extra peacekeepers on patrol, my wish would have come true with no consequences that amounted to much in district twelve.

I was feeling much better now, thanks to Mrs. Everdeen. She gave me her word that Katniss would remain outside any whisper of what had happened. She assured me she would speak of my shame to no one other than Haymitch.

They said the third day was the worst. They were afraid my insides were ruptured, rather than just severely bruised. They only told me afterward, how close I had come to escape.

I should have recognized it, from how kind Haymitch had been after his little explosion that I wouldn't tattle on my idiot brother. I kind of hate my big brother, I have every right to hate him more, but I know why. I know it isn't his fault. Not really. He can't help what my mother's family festers. They are evil. My Mother pretends. I wonder what she went through sometimes. Something made her cold and cruel, but I don't know if it is just a family gene or if she was put through so much that who she is now is all that's left.

I am aware that they have screwed me up forever. The one thing I have in common with my mother is that I pretend well too. We will never be close. She will never love much of anything, least of all me, but she is my mother.

I can't tell Haymitch what he wants to know. I can't ruin her little pretend world. It's all she has really. The bakery, the perfect house, full of perfect dutiful children who smile at customers and make the world believe that we have it all. Now her son is a rich victor. Now she can relax a little and gaze at the finish line of a successful motherhood. She can hold her head up and have her moment when the town forgets how they treated her, because of who she came from. She can look my father's people in the face and imagine they regret how they took delight in telling him what a mistake he'd made by marrying a townie slut. She could have her pride.

If the truth were ever to slip away from me. It would kill her. She would be horrified, but it would be deeper than regret, she would never survive the misery of her pride taken again. She treats my father like dirt, but if she loves anything in this world besides having more money than the neighbors, it's him. He gave her pride when he married her. He gave her a place that was shiny and clean. She became the baker's wife and the mother who taught her boys manners. She washed her hands of her past and I think it is her appreciation that makes her guard her place with a fist of iron.

I wanted more than that. I wanted a life filled with smiles and love, rather than appearances and hard fear of losing everything. I am the best baker of the three of us, but the shop will go to my oldest brother. The second son is meant to marry the butcher's daughter. I was the third child. I was useless. I was a bother and a burden to the future. The best they could hope to give me was a marriage to a merchant family full of daughters and no sons to split an inheritance.

They didn't want me to remain a bachelor much past my last reaping. They said, I could always work for my oldest brother, but he could never pay me enough to marry a poor girl and expect the income to keep me and my brattlings from starvation.

It was not cruelty that made them say this to me, just the truth of our economics. There was plenty of stale bread, but the thought of counting on it for a lifetime was depressing to say the least.

I knew my place and what was expected of me by the time I could walk. But when I was six years old, I told them I was going to marry a seam girl and it had been an unspoken battle since that time. As I neared manhood the battle lines became more vivid.

Marry Madge and be the mayor someday, my mother had whispered to me like words of love. You are so good at speaking, so popular, a natural politician, and Madge is the most beautiful girl in town. You deserve the most beautiful girl in town at your side. Show them Peeta. Show them all. Make them all pay for looking down their noses at us. Madge is your chance to make me proud. Forget the seam tramp and marry above your station. Don't throw your life away pining for an amusement you can buy on the side for that one need of all men. Put your children in Madge's belly and your spare coin in the seam girl's hand.

Madge and I had become friends. In my mother's mind I was already pledged to her and she and I would marry the second our last reaping was called. In Madges mind, I was kind of a goofy brother to her. In my mind, Madge was Katniss Everdeen's only friend and my only opportunity to hear of her and learn tidbits and treasures of the girl I was sure I would have died for.

Then the reaping and for a moment there, life stopped for me. She was being taken away. She volunteered to take her sisters place and though I loved her even more for doing that very brave thing, I instantly knew my life would be nothing from that moment on. I took a deep breath and prepared to make some kids day the luckiest day of his life. Having to kill Katniss never crossed my mind. I would test my boast that I would die to please that girl.

I glanced at my oldest brother and was thinking about the fact that as a bonus, I would escape him and his friends. I was shocked to see his eyes screwed shut and him mouthing silently, "please don't take my brothers," over and over.

I was so focused on that event and the out of character sight of him showing a vulnerable moment, that I didn't honestly hear who they called. His eyes snapped open and he focused on me with such a strange look of sorrow, horror, regret, pain and love, that it dawned on me, I had no need to volunteer.

Tears sprang to my eyes as I held his and took that first step forward. I nodded to him and smiled a farewell. I had no idea he would not laugh as he watched my death in the games. It shook me, to know I was really going to have to die to see him be my brother. Just that one time. It hurt no matter how precious the glimpse was.

Then I was on stage and she stood there hard and defiant. More tears tried to hit me at how proud I was of her. This was not a moment of being sad for me. It was more joy than I had ever imagined. I am probably the only tribute in the history of the games to cry tears of joy after the reaping ball spit me up for slaughter. But, I wasn't needing to win.

My plans really did put the odds in her favor. She had one less kill to make and a spare set of eyes to watch for danger. She had a second body to stand between her and death and I would do anything to send her home. Haymitch stole the show that day, but I liked him at once. I felt lucky that even fate would announce I was meant to die for her. It was the happiest, most content moment of my life. Peeta Mellark, no longer the baby of the family or just one of the baker's sons. I saw my mother no longer imagined me as the future mayor. Now, and for all time, I would be that boy who saved Katniss Everdeen.

I am that boy. Most realize she saved me back, but I did save her. She was right there in that tree, when I killed the campfire girl. I nearly fainted from recognition and the horror that if they were just able to stop bickering about how to kill me for a second, they would have never missed the shivering willow tree behind them.

I hurried them out of there. Then the battle with Cato. That gave her time to crawl away and hide. If he had found her tugging at the quiver and bow, he would have happily lopped her head off right then. I stood between her and death, just like I had meant to.

I had accepted my death so deeply that the idea is just hard to give up on. I tossed it away for a while when she played her own game of pretend. I might never see her again. I debated about leaving her a note. Would it give her comfort? Would she care? Laugh? Or would I just mess it up getting sappy. I already knew I would leave Haymitch a note. It would be a private one. It was pathetically sappy.

I hate for my last mind's picture of Katniss to be her walking up the stairs toward him. She supposedly didn't know I was injured, but if she did or didn't, she had not stopped by. Even if I were asleep, that would have been information Haymitch would have jumped to tell me. He would say anything to make me believe the lie has some hope of being true. If there were no Gale, I might be less certain of my plan. I might have hope. But I can't compete with him. I have no more to offer her than he does. Less in fact. He can hunt and feed them, protect them, love them with a pure heart. I can make silly flowers of sugar and lard as fake and useless as I am. I have coins now, lots of them. She has them too, not that it would matter to her even if she didn't. He is a man of few words. I talk too much. He's a manly handsome rugged guy who the girls all fall for. I'm a joke who is so pretty in a not manly way that boys take me and call me terrible names for girls. I have just depressed myself even more with that list.

I look at my bedside. There is a bottle of pills on a tray with several others. There are antibiotics and healing agents sent all the way from the capitol. Nothing is too good for us victors. They want to keep us nice and healthy. There are pain pills too as well as sleep pills and other things that work magic on a damaged body. Some make my heart beat with more power, I'm told to make the blood reach the tiny healing capillaries better. Haymitch was warned that the dosage must be precise. Too much could stroke me out or cause my heart to hold a beat indefinitely. He has stayed sober and charted each pill for this very reason.

I read the label carefully. I hold up the bottle of pain pills too and my mind wanders into the land of combinations. Pain pills for the discomfort, sleeping pills to make me too drowsy to call for help, and then the final act, my heart breaking once and for all. I sit up and look at the three bottles. It had to work in some way that Haymitch could not be to blame.

I can't think of any and have just placed them carefully back on the tray as I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He is surprised to see me sitting up and a huge smile leaps to greet me. His eyes dart quickly to the tray at my side, but return at once seeing all is in place. "Well, look who might stick around after all. How do you feel?"

"Hurting a little."

He looks at the clock. "Meant to be back before now. Time for your pain pill," he lifts his book and adds, "And the red one to help you breathe and the expectorant inhaler to help you get rid of the blood in your right lung. And your kidney pill is due in the next hour so I will go ahead and fix you up early." He fumbles about with several bottles squinting at the fine print, before handing me my little capitol cocktail of tablets. He waits expectantly as I down them and reach for the glass he holds out. "That's a good boy. So much easier when you can do it from this end."

"What are you talking about?" I say grinning.

He flushes a little and with a snooty curl to his lip advises me of how he'd been required to prepare rectal suppositories for two days.

"Ewww." I say mortified, but the image is funny. I flutter my eyes at him and coyly ask, "Did it get you hot?"

He tries to smile and enjoy the joke he knows I was making, but his breath hitching and his weight shuffling as he clears his throat and shakes his head, makes me hurt for him a little. "No. sweetheart. There may have been a few tears, but there wasn't much I could say would make me want to deal with the stitches more than I already had to."

I look down, embarrassed. "They itch."

"I know. Believe me. I'm a fucking expert on them." He sets his expression to a more casual face and busies himself around the room. I know better than to ask. He drives me nuts with his little glimmers of real, then his determination to tuck further revelation out of sight.

"Someone was asking about you today. She helped her poor drunken mentor home."

"But you aren't drunk." I say confused and heart beating furiously all of a sudden.

He smiles mischievously and his eyes twinkle with his self-satisfaction. "Rested my arm on her shoulder and she slipped hers around my waist. It was magical, for me. That got me hot. I think she may have liked it a little too. Tried to piss her off and she let it go. Even explained herself."

"God, she was practically throwing herself at you. What did she say?" I teased then tried to sound casual.

Haymitch and I have hashed the highpoints of his conversation with Katniss. He's gotten me into the shower and dressed me in real cloths or at least pajamas. I can't explain how happy I am to be out of the diaper things. That was almost as humiliating as the event or being discovered after the event or finding out I had stitches in a place that should never ever have stitches or finding out the mother of the girl I love had put them there. Or that Haymitch had medicated me with suppositories. Ok, humiliated and I were now best friends but I was still delighted to be out of the diaper.

He is feeding me, though I am capable of it myself, he's happy playing feed the helpless little baker boy and I am happy with his gentle attention.

"Is there any bread?" I ask.

"No."

"I thought you went to the bakery?"

"I did."

"So was it not open?"

"It was open, but I had other things on my mind. Forgot to get the bread."

I swallow. "What did you do? Who was working?"

"I don't know. You boys all look alike to me," he says daring me to keep asking questions.

"Haymitch." I say too full of fury to get out more.

"Oh, what. If I left bodies in my wake they would have been here by now to drag me off to the big tree that bears the terrible fruit."

"Not funny." I say,

"What's not funny?" Katniss says from the doorway.

Haymitch wipes my chin quickly and stands as if delighted. I never hear her come in. I have no idea what to say. I look at her and my mind blanks with emotion. She came? She came to see me?

"Peeta doesn't get my highly developed sense of humor. I told him I got the stew in the hob really cheap and there were rumors some peackeepers are missing." Haymitch bats his eyes at her.

Katniss stands there for a second, then another and a smile begins to crawl up her face like a tick up a pant leg, slow and determined. She suddenly burst out laughing and her eyes are merry and twinkle. She's so beautiful when she smiles. I sigh trying to memorize every smile line and the colors of her contour.

"Oh, Peeta. He's teasing. Shame on you Haymitch. Poor Peeta. " she enters and carelessly flops on my bed. I wince but turn it into a smile before she sees.

"It's all in the set-up, sweetheart. Doesn't work if you don't have the patience to let them put two and two together. Luckily he seems of adequate intelligence most of the time."

I glare at him, knowing he means more than his surface comments.

"So, nice black eyes, what else did they try to mush out the opposite side?" She pretends to peek down the front of my blanket.

Haymitch's eyes narrow. I am going to kill that man.

"Lung. Broke ribs. You'll have to be gentle with him for a while, sweetheart." He says heading out the door. "Going to give the two of you a little privacy. If there should be screaming, ought I return or let you take your chances…"

Katniss is blushing. "I think I will be safe." I say kindly, hoping he hasn't spoiled her mood.

"He survived you taking care of him. He seems pretty tough to me." Katniss flashes annoyance at the back of our mentor. He mumbles something, but I don't even want to know what it was. Katniss is here, with me. She worried about me. She hasn't been with him.

She takes my hand and looks at me closely. "I'm sorry they hurt you. Do you know who it was?"

_Yes, I do. And, I love you anyway._

* * *

><p><em>Thanks for all the sweet reviews - far far far nicer than I ever expected - I appreciate your kind thoughts. As always I am experimenting and wanted to show a glimpse of a Peeta that has never been done - A Peeta who was Happy at the reaping - a Peeta who had motive to to die for her - yes he did love her and he was sweet from her view - but people are rarely the image they project. That happy perfect home rarely is - sometimes people air the laundry, but most often it is neatly tucked and pressed with the linens. Hope you like it - my eyes are blurry from screen time so any mistakes - I don't own glasses and can't blink enough to clear the gunk. Point it out and I will fix it. Maybe. <em>

_And the song - lol - billy joel was wrong - only the young die good - hehehe_


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